Taking Operational Business Decisions to the Next Level

Businesses live or die based on the decisions they make.

Some decisions are strategic and far reaching; others are medium-range tactical decisions or operational decisions which may be simple and of the moment. All are important because, without success in making mid-range and day-to-day business decisions, a company’s long-term health and even its existence will be in question.

At Enova International, we’ve adopted advanced analytics at the core of our business, helping make many of the routine—yet critical—decisions that are required by our business every day. And we’ve made part of our mission the pursuit of innovation on advanced analytics and decision making with the goal of helping our business continue to grow, compete and succeed.

Today, innovation around predictive and prescriptive analytics is made possible through gains in artificial intelligence and machine learning that drive efficiency and automation. Taking advantage of these advances in technology in through our digital decisioning platform has changed our business for the better.

We believe that machine learning and algorithms have improved to the point that taking advantage of these technologies is a must for businesses that want to remain competitive. That’s why Enova International created its analytics as a service brand, Enova Decisions™, to help other enterprises improve their operational decision making through digital decisioning.

“Digital decisioning” is an automated, repeatable process capable of making simple, routine operational decisions across day-to-day business processes. It leverages technical advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning by turning predictive models and inputs such as business rules and first- and third-party data into actionable outcomes that can be applied to a wide range of business processes.

These outcomes can be used to make business decisions in real time, helping businesses across industries by enabling them to more accurately predict customer behavior. For example, at Enova International, we rely on data-driven, operational decisions about consumers related to risk. These routine decisions have a significant, positive impact on our business performance.

Digital decisioning makes a difference.

Digital decisioning can make a difference to your business as well. At a time when machine learning algorithms have advanced to where it possible to use 150 data sets to make a decision, rather than 12 or 15; and decision platforms retrain themselves in hours rather than days, the resulting increases in accuracy and efficiency should not be ignored.

If you are just starting out with digital decisioning, you should know the barriers to entry have never been lower. It’s true that building a digital decisioning platform from scratch requires an investment, commitment and expertise beyond that of many businesses; but now businesses have the opportunity to yield measurable results in solving business problems with outsourced, real-time digital decisioning. Digital decisioning is a low latency, high speed process that enables the making of decisions in seconds and subseconds. What latency is needed to make an effective decision for your business problem? Identify and source the technology that you need to deliver it.

If your business is already taking advantage of advanced analytics and decisioning, you can improve your results. For example, take a look at your data. Better data yields better decisions. Improving your data and data sources is a way to quickly improve your existing decisioning process. If you’re using a single source of third-party data, opt instead for systems that can provide the service-oriented architecture necessary to integrate multiple sources of third-party vendor data. Keep in mind that you should also work to actively maximize your return on investment for data and avoid unnecessary spending.

About the Author

As CAO of Enova International, Joe DeCosmo leads a multidisciplinary analytics team that provides end-to-end data and analytic services including data warehousing, business intelligence, business analytics, fraud, credit risk and marketing. His team supports the global online financial services offered by Enova International and delivers on-demand decision-making technology and real-time predictive analytics services to clients through the Enova Decisions brand.

Prior to starting at Enova in 2014, he served as Director and Practice Leader of Advanced Analytics for Chicago-based West Monroe Partners. He has also held a number of executive positions at HAVI Global Solutions and the Allant Group. Joe received a B.A. in economics from Lewis University and an M.A. in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is Immediate Past-President of the Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association and is on the Advisory Board of the UIC College of Business Administration. Joe lives in the Chicago area with his wife and daughters.

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